SALVADOR DALI

SALVADOR DALI

Salvador Dali, 1st Marquis of Púbol (May 11, 1904 – January 23, 1989), was a Spanish Catalan surrealist painter born in Figueres, Catalonia, Spain. Salvador Dalí was a skilled draftsman, best known for the striking and bizarre images in his surrealist work. Salvador Dali´s painterly skills are often attributed to the influence of Renaissance masters. Salvador Dali´s best known work, The Persistence of Memory, was completed in 1931.




The Persistence of Memory by Salvador Dali

La persistencia de la memoria (1931) or The Persistence of Memory is the most famous painting by artist Salvador Dalí. The painting has also been popularly known as "Soft Watches", "Droopy Watches", "The Persistence of Time", or "Melting Clocks".




Geopoliticus Child Watching the Birth of the New Man by Salvador Dali

In this painting Salvador Dali gives us a large egg-shaped globe of the world out of which a man is struggling to "hatch". This "new man" is coming out of North America - the United States. There is blood running out of the crack in the egg and the new man's hand has England firmly in its grasp. In the foreground two figures are watching; one an adult the other a small child. The adult, of indeterminate sex, is drawing the child's attention by pointing at the new man being birthed.




The Face of War by Salvador Dali (1940 - 41)

Salvador Dali is obsessed with death, wether it appears as the face of war or, more seductively, in the shape of female bodies. The props he designed for the film Moontide were so horrifying that they were rejected because the technician refused to build them.




The Elephants

Dali’s elephants are usually depicted with long, multi-jointed, almost invisible legs of desire, and carrying objects on their backs, which are also full of symbolism. These elephants represent the future and are also a symbol of strength. They are often shown carrying obelisks, which are symbols of power and domination, and not without phallic overtones. The weight supported by the animals spindly legs shows weightlessness, only made more significant by the burden on their backs.




Exploding Clock

The soft watch exploding adresses nuclear physics, einstenian physics and its relation to time. So in the exploding clock we can see time desintigrating, with einstein moving objects and the faster they move the slower they experience time. So Dali has moved that irrelevancy of time from the process of dreams to physics. Dali was an avid reader of the sciences and incluided many of its branches to his art from psychology, biology, chemistry and physics.




Temptation of Saint Anthony

In this picture temptation appears to Saint Anthony successively in the form of a horse in the foreground representing strength, sometimes also symbol of voluptuousness, and in the form of the elephant which follows it, carrying on its back the golden cup of lust in which a nude woman is standing precariously balanced on the fragile pedestal, a figure which emphasizes the erotic character of the composition. The other elephants are carrying buildings on their backs; the first of these is a obelisk inspired by that of Bernini in Rome, the second and third are burdened with Venetian edifices in the style of Palladio.




Metamorphosis of Narcissus

Metamorphosis of Narcissus (1937) is an oil-on-canvas painting by the Spanish surrealist Salvador Dalí. This painting is from Dalí's Paranoiac-critical period. According to Greek mythology, Narcissus fell in love with his own reflection in a pool. Unable to embrace the watery image, he pined away, and the gods immortalized him as a flower. Dali completed this painting in 1937 on his long awaited return to Paris after having had great success in the United States.




The Average Bureaucrat

The Average Bureaucrat is a loyal reproduction of the original artwork of the same title created by Salvador Dali in 1930. Akin to his contemporaries ‘The Surrealists’ Salvador Dali found Bureaucrats and indeed bureaucracy repugnant. Even so, it seems no coincidence that this composition was created in 1930 shortly after his father (Don Salvador) had disinherited and denounced him: And unquestionably, being a Notary his father could most certainly be regarded as a bureaucrat. Hence most critics feel this rather gross human being who seems to be asleep or dead upon the shores of the blackest sea is in fact a portrayal of the artist’s father.




Portrait of Laurence Olivier

The Olivier portrait was displayed next to Dali's fine portrait of Jack Warner of Warner Bros. Studios fame - a painting I saw many years ago at its home at Syracuse University, just a 3-hour drive east from my home in Buffalo. As it turns out, The Salvador Dali Society, Inc. (www.dali.com) recently acquired the fine study for Dali's portrait of Mrs. Jack Warner, the oil painting being, in my considered opinion, more impressive than the one of Jack himself.




Destino Animation

Destino is an animated short film released in 2003 by The Walt Disney Company. Destino is unique in that its production originally began in 1945, 58 years before its eventual completion. The project was a collaboration between American animator Walt Disney and Spanish painter Salvador Dalí, and features music written by Mexican songwriter Armando Dominguez and performed by Dora Luz. It was included in the Animation Show of Shows in 2003.




Spellbound Dream Sequence

Spellbound features is a famous dream sequence designed by Salvador Dali that includes some astonishing images, including huge floating eyes, twisted landscapes, and a faceless man in a tuxedo.




“Swans Reflecting Elephants”

“Swans Reflecting Elephants” (1937, private collection), is one of those magical Salvador Dali paintings that virtually everyone falls instantly in love with! It’s a stunning work by any meaasure: beautiful color scheme, super-fine draftsmanship, smooth, fluid tone to the composition – and simple but irresistible double-imagery.




Landscape Near Figueras

Landscape Near Figueras (1910) is a painting by the Spanish artist Salvador Dalí. This is one of the earliest known works by Dalí, having been painted when he was about six years old. At the beginning of Dalí's career, his primary influence was from the Impressionist movement. This painting is one of the purest examples of Dalí's impressionist period. Over the next ten years he would use increasingly brilliant colors and lighting until the 1920s, when he began creating cubist and Surrealist compositions.




Landscape with Butterflies

Beautifully colored and meticulously detailed, Salvador Dali’s “Landscape with Butterflies” exudes an unnerving ambiguity about its subjects’ scale, proportion, and proximity to other objects in the painting. Dali (1904 – 1989) a Surrealist master excelling in numerous styles and media, portrayed complex, symbolic dream imagery and familiar objects in startling forms. Pioneering the Paranoiac-Critical artistic style inspired by Freud, he accessed his subconscious for more intense artistic expression.




Slave Market with the Disappearing Bust of Voltaire

Slave Market with the Disappearing Bust of Voltaire (1940) is a painting by Spanish Surrealist Salvador Dalí. The painting depicts a slave market, while a woman at a booth watches some people. A variety of people seem to make up the face of Voltaire, while the face seems to be positioned on an object to form a bust. The painting was completed in 1940. Dalí describes his work on the painting "to make the abnormal look normal and the normal look abnormal."




The Station of Perpignan

Uncomfortable with the bureacracy at his local Spanish train station in Figueres, he chose to ship all his large canvases to the USA from Perpignan station. Dali also said he had a vision while inside the station, on 19 September 1963. He said “Suddenly, all appeared crystal-clear to me, I was in front of the centre of the world" The vision was followed his painting of Perpignan Station.




The Great Masturbator

The Great Masturbator is a self-portrait painted in July 1929. Dali's head has the shape of a rock formation near his home and is seen in this form in several paintings dating from 1929. The painting deals with Dali's fear and loathing of sex. He blamed his negative feelings toward sex as partly a result of reading his father's, extremely graphic book on venereal diseases as a young boy.




Illumined Pleasures

Illumined Pleasures was created by fusing oil and collage on panel. The canvas of the painting is small, measuring only 10" x 14" (24 x 34.5 cm); its size compared with the mass of detail Dali has managed to cram into it, clearly reveals Dali's great talent as a miniaturist painter.




The Invisible Man

The Invisible Man was not completed until 1932. It was the first painting in which Dali began to use the double images that were to flood his work over the next decade, during his "paranoia-critical" period. The double images used here are not as successful as the later painting, Swans Reflecting Elephants (1937). The viewer is aware of the illusions that Dali is creating before they are aware of what the overall form is meant to be.

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Vincent Van Gogh

Vincent Van Gogh

Vincent van Gogh is a famous Dutch artist who produced some impressive paintings which were respected for their passion, meaning and colour. Van Gogh was a post-impressionist artist who achieved a style that used thick layers of paint and concentrated on brightness rather than precise depictions of reality. The life and career of this great painter are covered in full throughout this website which also features and extensive gallery of his most famous paintings too. You will see that this artist experienced one of the most intense and unstable lives of all time, with a good study into the meanings behind Van Gogh's work.



Red Vineyard at Arles painting by Vincent van Gogh

Red Vineyard at Arles is another fine art work from Van Gogh and allows the artist to fill a great spread of red across the painting which is overpowering and impressive. The colours chosen here are allowed because of the carefully selected subject which Vincent would have been excited to find, knowing immediately of the opportunity that it brought him to go to town with colour and thick oils.



Starry Night over the Rhone painting by Vincent van Gogh

Starry Night over the Rhone is another work from Van Gogh which features swirling colours and an impressive night scene. It is possible that this painting was actually created from memory, after the artist had earlier visited the Rhone to view the Starry Night before returning home to his room where he started working on the painting itself. This version with the scene over the Rhone is somewhat more subtle than his other painting of the Starry Night which featured much more vivid colour and aggressive strokes of paint.



Wheatfield with Crows painting by Vincent van Gogh

Wheatfield with Crows is one of Van Gogh's most famous landscape paintings and came towards the end of his life when despite his mental condition worsening, his painting style actually became more expressive and brighter, contrasting completely to his own mood at that time. Wheatfield with Crows again brings the colours of the French countryside as Vincent saw them and is an eye into his mind.



Thatched Cottages painting by Vincent van Gogh

Thatched Cottages is a charming but lesser known painting from Vincent van Gogh which we include above in all it's glory. The artist appreciated architecture within the French countryside and also produced some impressive work in his earlier years in the Netherlands too, including several paintings of windmills. The Thatched Cottages captured here are well within the artist's normal style, but the subject itself is normally highly popular and as such this painting is reguarly chosen as a framed art print.



Skull with Burning Cigarette painting by Vincent van Gogh

Skull with Burning Cigarette is a popular painting with an unusual choice of subject for an artist who normally went for brighter options rather than the slightly negative and even surreal feeling found here. Many buy reproductions of Skull with Burning Cigarette, perhaps because of it's almost revolutionary undertones which is of particular interest to young people, for example.



Midday Rest painting by Vincent van Gogh

Midday Rest is a charming work from Van Gogh which features a farm worker sleeping amongst some beautiful scenery, and it is sometimes refered to as Midday Rest After Millais. You can see the painting above and is a marginally lesser known painting from Van Gogh's career than many of the other art works featured within this website.



Landscape painting by Vincent van Gogh

Landscape paintings are what Van Gogh is best known for and you can see another above, though others such as Wheatfield with Crows and his various cypress-clad ones are all better known and further researched than this one. Vincent van Gogh found that his careful study of the outdoors was a great way to calm his own mind and also allowed him an opportunity to experiment with his detailed colour combinations and vary the scenes which he covered.



Sower painting by Vincent van Gogh

Sower is a powerful painting from Vincent van Gogh which features a beautiful sunset with strong reds that dominates the work and allows all other details to take a relatively lower amount of attention. Sower is an instantly recognisable work from the artist's career and it retains a considerable level of popularity for those looking to buy Van Gogh art prints, posters and stretched canvases.



Vincent's Bedroom at Arles by Vincent Van Gogh

Vincent's Bedroom at Arles is a classic scene which details the personal life of the artist and offers a rare insight into how he lived thanks to this accurate depiction of his bedroom in the house where he stayed in Arles, France. As well as creating his bedroom on canvas, the artist also gave some of the objects found here their own dedicated work, such as with his chair and also his shoes.



Chair by Vincent Van Gogh

Chair as described above was an a key part of is bedroom scene and as such was later given it's very own painting which allowed the artist to add much more detail to it and also use greater varieties of colour. In order to add more interest Van Gogh also placed his own smoking pipe with papers and tobacco onto the chair which has naturally drawn much discussion as to quite why he did this. Most mysteries regarding this artist have always remained that way despite the amount of interest in his career.



Almond Branches in Bloom by Vincent Van Gogh

Almond Branches in Bloom is currently the most purchased reproduction from Van Gogh's career although it was not particularly appreciated by the academics. Flowers within a stylish look are always much loved within the art mainstream and Almond Branches in Bloom is certainly no different. One interesting aspect to the work is that it shows the artist's appreciation for Japanese art and there were also several other paintings from this period which show clear similarities to and influence from Japanese paintings from previous centuries.



Cafe Terrace at Night Painting by Vincent Van Gogh

Cafe Terrace is a painting which has brought great attention to a cafe in Arles, France which itself still continues today and has become a mecca for Van Gogh fans who come to France to understand more about his life and career. Cafe Terrace, it is fair to say, is also highly popular today because of the way that it captures French life, which many look to as aspirational when considering the relaxed and healthy nature of life here. Van Gogh himself was a great fan of the country and particularly appreciated the colours to be found within the countryside which perfectly suited his new artistic direction.



Night Cafe by Vincent Van Gogh

Night Cafe is a painting which you can see above and it actually was not produced in the same bar as featured in the Cafe Terrace, which many don't realise. Night Cafe is another interesting insight into the life of French people during the 19th century. Van Gogh was always an artist who was highly interested in using art to cover the lives of normal people where normally painters had been attracted only to the rich and famous. Van Gogh can fairly be considered a man of the people.



Irises Painting by Vincent Van Gogh

Irises were one of several favoured flowers for Vincent van Gogh who included several versions of this colourful purple plant, both in still life pre-planned paintings as well as within the natural setting of the French countryside. The art work shown above is certainly the best known of all which included Irises and offers an explosion of colour to match what the artist would have seen at that time, which came about very much towards the end of his life and career.



Van Gogh Sunflowers

Sunflowers were the topic of an incredible series of paintings which are now to be found in major art galleries across the world. Friend to Vincent and fellow artist, Paul Gauguin, decided to buy several of these paintings himself despite not always approving of much of the work from his housemate. They were to decorate the Yellow House in Arles with several from this series.



Van Gogh Poppies

Poppies offered bold blocks of red to the artist's paintings which was very much suited to the new post-impressionist approach which he took up upon moving to France, where his use of colour was to become far more aggressive and positive. Poppies, as with Irises, can be found combined together in several still life works as well as within a more natural setting such as local gardens.



Vincent van Gogh Arles Garden

Arles Garden shows the tender side of an artist who could also correctly choose ideal locations from which to produce his post-impressionist art, where natural surroundings and bright colours were the best subjects for his work. Van Gogh was similar to Monet in the way that he devoted a lot of time in garden settings and they both similarly understood the importance of colour and how it could attract a viewer's attention immediately.



Van Gogh Portraits

Portraits from Van Gogh were frequent throughout his career and represent how art was very much part of his life, and equally his life was very much part of his art. Many women with whom he had relationships would appear within portraits, as would other people who he came across as he moved from one location to another as a result of his persistant social problems that left him unable to achieve any form of stability right across his adult life.



Vincent van Gogh Self-Portraits

Self-Portraits are highly useful ways for researchers to understand more about the life and inner-mind of an artist, which are also frequently turbulent, with creativity often going hand-in-hand with social indiscretions. The portraits of Van Gogh has their own meaning built in and also stand alone as fine pieces of art work, with the painter producing a whole host of self-portraits over the period of his career, experimenting with different clothing and accessories each time.

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Leonardo da Vinci Paintings

Leonardo da Vinci Paintings

Shortly after his return to Florence, he and Michelangelo were commissioned to paint frescos on the walls of the new city hall. While he was working on his mural depicting the battle of Anghiari, which had been commissioned in part by Niccolo Machiavelli, Leonardo also painted his most famous work, the Mona Lisa. Leonardo was born in Vinci, Italy on April 15th, 1452, the illegitimate son of a young notary. Leonardo grew up in an environment rich with scholarly texts and art, provided by his father, who himself taught Leonardo how to paint, and by his father's family.



Leonardo da Vinci Paintings

Leonardo's first moment in the sun came when Verroccio asked him to help paint an angel in his "Baptism of Christ" piece. Leonardo so impressed his master that Verrochio himself decided he would never paint again. Leonardo continued working with Verrochio for a few years, and then the two parted ways. Leonardo went on to be in the service of the Duke Ludovico Sforza of Milan, where he remained for 16 years. Leonardo didn't only paint for the Duke, but he also designed machinery, weapons, and a fair bit of architecture. Science and art were merged in an unending output of impressive works and studies.



Leonardo da Vinci Paintings

Duke Sforza died shortly after the completion of one of Leonardo's most famous work, The Last Supper; Leonardo who had now lost his patron, and decided to leave Milan. He eventually returned to Florence after having traveled, lived, and worked for various patrons throughout Italy.



Leonardo da Vinci Paintings

A short while later, Leonardo's father passed away, leaving his family to fight over the distribution of his assets, of which none went to Leonardo. It was only later and following the death of his uncle that Leonardo would inherit land and money.



Leonardo da Vinci Paintings

Leonardo later went to Rome, and was given living quarters in the Vatican by Pope Leo X, so that he could further explore the arts while working on commissioned pieces for the Church. Leonardo did not create many new paintings during this period, concentrating on his drawings instead; it was quite difficult for Leonardo to pursue his studies of scientific subjects and anatomy while in the employ of the Pope, as the Church frowned upon the dissection of human cadavers.



Leonardo da Vinci Paintings

For the incoronation of King Francis kings Leonardo had designed a mechanical lion automaton that actually walked. Soon thereafter, Leonardo would become "first painter and engineer, and architect of the king." for his final employer, Francis the 1st. in France. He was given his own private residence and studio, in which he taught, and continued work on his studies, drawings, and sketches. At this point, Leonardo was quite aged, and even though he was left-handed, paralysis of his right hand made it very difficult for him to work.



Leonardo da Vinci Paintings

Painter, sculptor, draughtsman, architect, engineer, anatomist, physicist, astronomer, observer of life in all its forms, and most of all, great thinker. Leonardo is one of our history's most admired geniuses, centuries ahead of his time, one of the first artists to seamlessly merge science and art. Although he only completed 6 major paintings in his entire career, they include some of the most important images ever known.



Leonardo da Vinci Paintings

In 1466, at the age of fourteen, Leonardo was apprenticed to the artist Andrea di Cione, known as Verrocchio, whose workshop was "one of the finest in Florence". Other famous painters apprenticed or associated with the workshop include Domenico Ghirlandaio, Perugino, Botticelli, and Lorenzo di Credi. Leonardo would have been exposed to both theoretical training and a vast range of technical skills including drafting, chemistry, metallurgy, metal working, plaster casting, leather working, mechanics and carpentry as well as the artistic skills of drawing, painting, sculpting and modelling.



Leonardo da Vinci Paintings

Leonardo's early life has been the subject of historical conjecture. Vasari, the 16th-century biographer of Renaissance painters tells of how a local peasant made himself a round shield and requested that Ser Piero have it painted for him. Leonardo responded with a painting of a monster spitting fire which was so terrifying that Ser Piero sold it to a Florentine art dealer, who sold it to the Duke of Milan. Meanwhile, having made a profit, Ser Piero bought a shield decorated with a heart pierced by an arrow, which he gave to the peasant.



Leonardo da Vinci Paintings

Florence, at the time of Leonardo's youth, was the centre of Christian Humanist thought and culture. Leonardo commenced his apprenticeship with Verrocchio in 1466, the year that Verrocchio's master, the great sculptor Donatello, died. The painter Uccello whose early experiments with perspective were to influence the development of landscape painting, was a very old man. The painters Piero della Francesca and Fra Filippo Lippi, sculptor Luca della Robbia, and architect and writer Leon Battista Alberti were in their sixties. The successful artists of the next generation were Leonardo's teacher Verrocchio.



Leonardo da Vinci Paintings

Leonardo's youth was spent in a Florence that was ornamented by the works of these artists and by Donatello's contemporaries, Masaccio whose figurative frescoes were imbued with realism and emotion and Ghiberti whose Gates of Paradise, gleaming with gold leaf, displayed the art of combining complex figure compositions with detailed architectural backgrounds. Piero della Francesca had made a detailed study of perspective, and was the first painter to make a scientific study of light. These studies and Alberti's Treatise were to have a profound effect on younger artists and in particular on Leonardo's own observations and artworks.



Leonardo da Vinci Paintings

Leonardo was a contemporary of Botticelli, Domenico Ghirlandaio and Perugino, who were all slightly older than he was. He would have met them at the workshop of Verrocchio, with whom they had associations, and at the Academy of the Medici. Botticelli was a particular favourite of the Medici family and thus his success as a painter was assured. Ghirlandaio and Perugino were both prolific and ran large workshops. They competently delivered commissions to well-satisfied patrons who appreciated Ghirlandaio's ability to portray the wealthy citizens of Florence within large religious frescoes, and Perugino's ability to deliver a multitude of saints and angels of unfailing sweetness and innocence.



Leonardo da Vinci Paintings

In 1476, during the time of Leonardo's association with Verrocchio's workshop, the Portinari Altarpiece by Hugo van der Goes arrived in Florence, bringing new painterly techniques from Northern Europe which were to profoundly effect Leonardo, Ghirlandaio, Perugino and others. In 1479, the Sicilian painter Antonello da Messina, who worked exclusively in oils, traveled north on his way to Venice, where the leading painter, Giovanni Bellini adopted the technique of oil painting, quickly making it the preferred method in Venice. Leonardo was also later to visit Venice.



Leonardo da Vinci Paintings

This is one of the most beautiful Leonardo da Vinci paintings that used the “sfumato” technique. The sfumato technique was used to tone down a picture and make the picture look like it is evaporating into thin air. In fact, the Italian word “sfumato” actually means to evaporate like smoke. The picture depicts the Madonna in the center. Also in the picture is John the Baptist and Jesus. An angel named Gabriel is also present. The picture depicts Jesus blessing John while John holds his hands outstretched at Jesus. Two versions of this painting were created. The one described above is the Louvre version that was completed between the years 1483 and 1486. The other version is popularly known as the London version which was completed in 1495-1508.



Leonardo da Vinci Paintings

If there are two versions of Leonardo da Vinci paintings, they are usually referred to as the Louvre version or the London version as they are usually displayed at either the museum in Louvre, Paris or the National Gallery in London.



Leonardo da Vinci Paintings

This is one of the rarest Leonardo da Vinci paintings as he had used a male subject instead of a female one that is so characteristic of all his other paintings. The picture depicts a musician holding a scroll of paper, thought to contain notes of music. There has been some controversy about this Leonardo da Vinci painting as some claim it to be a self portrait while some claim it to be a painting that was started by Leonardo da Vinci but completed by some other painter.



Leonardo da Vinci Paintings

Certainly these are just four works of Leonardo da Vinci selected to introduce you to the magnificence of the works of a genius. Other work that should be covered if not for the fear of creating an epic prologue to the master of high renaissance is the Adoration of Mag, and in fact, so much more including his famous drawings and engineered designs.



Leonardo da Vinci Paintings

It is not just Leonardo da Vinci’s paintings that have made him famous to almost everyone in the world. He was a man of exceptional talent who also conceptualized the helicopter, a tank, solar power and even a calculator in times when civilization was just at the grassroots level. He was truly a remarkable genius who touched down on this earth during his times. As with any exceptionally talented people, he also had his share of eccentricities, with his downfall being that he was a chronic procrastinator. It is because of this reason that there are only about 15 known preserved Leonardo da Vinci paintings available today.



Leonardo da Vinci Paintings

Reproductions of Leonardo da Vinci's paintings are best served as framed art prints which finish the original brilliance of the artist with a professional touch that looks great in most homes. Younger fans may instead go for posters or stretched canvases instead. The art market is now flooded with Da Vinci reproductions, with many offering alternative versions of the original paintings, such as cropped elements in greater detail or slightly different tonal and colour balances.



Leonardo da Vinci Paintings

Leonardo da Vinci was certainly the most influential of artists, with a great breadth of talent that is unsurpassed by any human, and only matched by Michelangelo. The Renaissance was led by these two figureheads, with others adding their own more narrow specialties on top to drive European art development onwards. Italian art peaked during this period and has never risen to the same levels since, in terms of influence on other countries and as such Leonardo da Vinci will always be amongst the most respected painters and sketchers with in the country.

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